Noughties

by Ben Masters

  Her eyes are thoughtful, her mouth delicately strained. “Eliot—”

  The babe is looking directly into my eyes, searching for something inscrutable. He isn’t saying anything anymore; just a blank canvas waiting for my traces—

  “Eliot? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Okay,” she says, looking at me doubtfully. “Do—”

  I’ve got him in one of those baby holders, like a rucksack you wear on your front. He faces me and I face him, up close, my aged reflection, snug as one body. Where I go, he goes. But he isn’t saying anything.

  He has started getting nosebleeds. They trickle like a showerhead left slightly on. The babe never makes a peep about it, so I don’t realize until I feel the liquid licking my chest. Every now and then he simply wipes his nose on me, which I like, because if you look hard enough, I swear, a subtle hint of his mischievous smile begins to dance and flicker across his face again. He’s sleeping a lot too, I’ve noticed, and quite fitfully, his harmless balls of fist hammering at the sides of my arms.

  I’ve taken him for a stroll in the University Parks. I thought he’d like that. Maples, birches, horse chestnuts, sycamores, cedars—they loom about us in polychromatic swarms—orange, red, purple, green, brown, gold—flush, flutter, blush. We weave through the elephantine trunks, gruff bark, dappled light pirouetting all about us, mysterious dusts floating across occasional sunbeams. The lush grass cuddles my feet and I wish he could feel it too, but I’m too frightened to put him down: I don’t want him to fall or get lost. And besides, I’m pretty sure he can’t walk—

  “Eliot!” shouts Ella. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing!” I yell back, beginning to resent the feeling of being tested so—

  Some apples drop about my head, bullied by an unexpected gust of wind, so I place a protective hand over the babe’s crown. He is still looking at me with milky gaze, my little bundle of damage. A green thought in a green shade, I marvel to myself. Bending down I scoop a handful of the fruit, chucking the bruised ones away and selecting the fittest. I take a bite to test it and see that it is good.

  “Here, matey, have some of this.”

  I hold it to his lips. He watches, locking me in his impossible stare. He gouges a hunk out of the shiny red ball, finally showing some life. His eyes close as he explores the rich, juicy fullness of his mouth.

  And then I notice that the park is empty.

  Even the sun has abandoned us of a sudden. An alien charge of agoraphobia rushes over me. We are alone in boundless solitude. I feel as though I’m unspooling, pulled in all directions, clinging desperately to the babe. You can’t tear us apart.

  I kiss him gently on the forehead. He’s saying nothing, just watching me and waiting for my next move—

  “Eliot? Are you okay?”

  The room’s spinning. I’m trying to yawn the nausea away but it isn’t working. I can feel myself doing a color change.

  “I’m gonna be sick …”

  I’m off, swimming an angry breaststroke through the muddlesome pissheads, fighting my way to the toilets. Fuck this, screams my dissident stomach. Let me out, yelps my pounding brain. I explode into the Men’s and line up a vacant cubicle, pawing after lock and seat.

  Shut in, I survey the scene, down on my lousy knees. Some of the blokes in this club have hopeless aim: there’s piss all over the broken toilet seat and in pools on the floor where I kneel, also splattered up the wall. This gets me choking and heaving. It goes something like this: cough, retch, cough, retch, cough, retch, belch (with a gulping noise at the end that swoops from high to low). My Adam’s apple is palpitating like a frog’s groggy throat … a toad’s saggy sack … It’s sick.

  The first few splodges get their comeuppance, scatter-gunned about the pan. The sight and smell conspire to warmly invite more gut rot to the party, so I continue on with comic sound effects.

  It’s rather a supportive atmosphere they cultivate here in Filth; here in the Filth toilets. Not only is there the Nigerian vendor caring for my hygiene (“no spray, no lay”), but there’s empathy in the adjoining cubicles. I can hear at least two other pukers around me. I feel their pain.

  “No splash, no gash.”

  “Oh fuck,” says the cubicle next to me, following a hefty hurl.

  “Sanjay?”

  “Freshen up for the pussy.”

  “Eliot?”

  “Ah mate, you too?”

  “Guys?” says the cubicle to the other side of me.

  “Scott?”

  “Yeah, it’s …” (he pauses to retch) “me.”

  “Wash your finger for the minger.”

  “Ah” (brrrrp) “mmm” (prfmff) “mate” (long extended chunder).

  “This is” (hwock) “bullshit.”

  Our staccato conversation is punctuated by vomming pyrotechnics. We’ve drunk beyond excess, and you can bet that we share formidable pride in this overt display of legendariness. (This must be the most I’ve drunk since the night I got so pissed that I woke the next morning to find, inexplicably, that I had purchased Seal’s entire back-catalogue on iTunes.) We synchronize one final chuck: “Blooorrrreeaaaww.”

  “Ah mate.”

  And there in the multicolored pan is all my money—a full chunky refund. It’s a fizzy remuneration, for sure, but you have to take what you can get when you’re a student.

  “Let’s just have a good night” (hurrumm), “yeah?”

  Blundering back into the field of play I’m overcome by an ecstatic post-vomit buzz; a strange euphoria of relief and renewal.

  Welcome back to Filth, where it’s getting harder and harder to run from the past … harder to disassociate myself from myself … harder to defer completion …

  Glad I got that sick out of the way. Wooooooo, did I need that. I mean, sick is sick, but it has to be done. I feel so refreshed; a new man. I sink a Jägerbomb and grab a plastic bottle of the cheapest, nastiest beer to celebrate the fact. Things are looking up.

  The music has progressed to hip-hop. A definite improvement (only when the right examples of the genre are chosen, of course). Oxford’s private-school brethren act all urban in dance and attitude. It’s unsurpassable entertainment. Savor it while it lasts, because the dreaded cheese hour looms.

  Ella has spotted me. There are so many intervening bodies, zigzagging and colliding, American-smoothing and Argentine-tangoing, blocking her way. It’s like one of those clichéd moments in a film when two lovers are separated on a bustling city street or at a busy airport, and one is desperate to get to the unaware other. Only I am aware, so I turn to escape. I can’t handle all this. I’m not ready to tell her anything.

  What have I done to Jack? I have to find him.

  On my way out of the club I get my hand stamped by the semifit girl at the door to ensure reentry. She must get so much abuse from bladdered lads straining to be romantic. The blotchy black mark she impresses on my hand will still be there tomorrow morning, a confused bar code, unsure of what exactly it encodes.

  The music deadens into a dull thud and the cold air gives my face a bitter, chap-lipped kiss. There’s still a queue out here, though it has thinned and shortened. Packs of compulsive smokers scruff the place up. My sweat becomes tinglingly apparent. I’m worried about my best mate. Where’s he gone? What’s he doing? I follow the railings and bend off round the corner, swiveling my head in concerned search. I flick my collar and bury my hands in my pockets.

  This is bullshit. So much for rebuilding our friendship.

  We only became close again recently. It was just before Finals. I was sat in my room hunched over some scribbled lecture notes, revising, when there came a beep on my laptop. Mugshot.com: instant message.

  You in ur room?

  Yeh

  Can I come over?

  Sure thing.

  We had barely talked all year. I couldn’t face him now that he was with Ella, and he must have noticed the difference, though he never raised it.
He wouldn’t confront me and say, “You’ve changed,” or “Is everything okay between the two of us?” Lads just can’t pull off those kinds of conversations. The sudden distance made him awkward in turn, as though my frigidity was infectious. Maybe he put it down to the fact that we had been the only witnesses on that drastic night in Ella’s room, like I wasn’t able to factor it all in and return to normal. But as exams lurked nearer it became easier to justify detachment and insularity anyhow, what with revision to take care of and paranoia to nurture. Everyone was focusing their energies on work, so social drifts and adjustments were pretty standard. Jack definitely realized something was up though. I remember walking toward him in the main quad one afternoon, not knowing whether to say hi or duck my head and shiftily pass on by. I contemplated feigning a phone call, or pulling off a blinding sneeze. Once we had locked eyes, still thirty meters apart, I had no choice but to make a sheepish acknowledgment. When though? The distance toward our meeting point seemed interminable, and the quad was silent, making a long-range greeting a feasible option. And how? A quick “hey mate,” or a token “alright” (no—that could be mistaken for a genuine question, in which case he would reply, and then I would be forced to respond to his reply, and so on), or maybe just a nod … In the end I peaked too soon, opting for a premature “hello” which he then echoed, with another ten meters of pained silence and self-consciousness until we actually passed.

  So this request was sharply unexpected. It certainly set me on edge as I blasted around my room, sorting my personalized mess into depersonalized piles, changing iTunes to something subtle and cool. I felt like I was preparing for a date. I was nervous.

  Bang. Jack was at the door. What could he want? A fight?

  “Hey mate,” I said, rather optimistically, as I opened up.

  “Alright?” He took in the scene as he entered: pile upon pile of books (I had emptied the college library of all its lit crit) and furling A2 sheets plastered with messy brainstorms and quotations, spread over the wooden floor.

  “Working hard then?” he said with that trembling yet accusatory tone indigenous to the frazzled Finalist. Ordinarily I would give the standard “Oh my god, I’ve done fuck all” sob story, but this was evidently impossible, busted amongst my intricate den of notes and folders.

  “Yeah, well, you know, trying,” I said. “I seem to spend more time thinking about revision than actually doing any though.” That was pretty accurate (to be fair). “How’s yours going?”

  “Disastrously,” he said. Yeah right. You’re just lucky we aren’t in your room. He dumped himself onto my sofa, so I lurched for the desk chair.

  So is shagging Ella all you thought it would be? I felt like saying, small talk being impossible in this kind of situation. Instead I settled for the rather more reserved: “Cup of tea?”

  “Cheers.”

  Jack fidgeted while I made the drinks, like he was trying to shake off a pest that had been dragging him down.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Ah mate.”

  “Ah mate?”

  “Ah mate.”

  “I’m sorry. What happened?”

  We sipped our drinks and I made haste to burn my tongue. Felt like carpet.

  Ella and Jack had broken up.

  “It’s impossible really.” He watched me cautiously between sentences, trying to judge whether it was wise to pull me back into his affairs. I wanted in, desperately. “She’s a demon when it comes to work, and she’s got a one-track mind now Finals are near. It hasn’t been easy. She’s absolutely convinced that she’s going to fuck up her exams. It’s ridiculous … I mean, you know better than me how clever she is … and dedicated. She reckons Dr. Fletcher has it in for her, and that she’s been at a disadvantage ever since she asked to switch her tutorials over to Dr. Snow. You’d think there was a conspiracy the way she goes on about it. She gets really upset when she talks about this stuff. And it isn’t just like nerdy paranoia … I mean she properly sobs and shit.”

  “I had no idea. We don’t have many tutes together anymore, but from what I’ve heard she’s doing great.”

  “Exactly. But she is beyond obsessive when it comes to her studies. She loses so much sleep thinking about whatever she’s working on and pulling all-nighters to nail essays. I think the pressure of work had a lot to do with her suicide attempt, you know?”

  I nearly choked on my tea. It was so unexpected—we had never talked about that event to each other. “Do you think?”

  “Yeah. Well, that and some other stuff, but I probably shouldn’t go into it all.” I got the sense that he wanted to confide in me, but I was raring to move the conversation on, panicking at the thought that Ella might have told him what happened between us.

  “Of course. I don’t want to pry, mate. Maybe you just need to break until Finals are done.”

  We slurped our tea a bit more. Civilized, like.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not convinced. It’s more than that though … Sometimes I think she only ended up with me because she was vulnerable. I was there when she needed someone and perhaps she wasn’t thinking straight. I don’t resent that … I understand. If anything, I feel guilty, like I took advantage or something.”

  “I’m sorry, man. I really am. It’s hard to know what to say.”

  “Don’t worry. I know. It’s tough opening up about this as it is.” We both looked down, feeling it excruciatingly unmanly to engage each other’s eyes. “You really are the only person I can turn to right now.”

  “Cheers, bro.” I cringed at this for it sounded far more conceited than I had intended; almost knowing. “I’ve missed you, actually,” I ventured, still looking anywhere but at Jack.

  “I’ve missed you too … man.”

  I was getting choked up, which was ridiculous. I gave an “ah mate” to puncture the awkwardness.

  “So was it mutual?” I said to the wall.

  “Kinda … I guess,” he said to the floor. “I mean, we’re more like brother and sister these days.” We silently nodded, as though we had collaboratively hit upon a hard-gleaned truth. “She better get a fucking First after all this.” We both laughed, relieved to be sharing an emotion with which we were more accustomed. Mates again, I guess … in a way.

  Where is he?

  I’m never going to find Jack out here. I’m feeling clearer-headed though, the breeze having whipped some sense into me, so I wander back inside the club and loiter around the edge of the dance floor, trying to locate some familiar faces. I observe the dancers absently, writhing in their dispossessed bodies. They shake their selves off like a dog shakes from the rain. They’re all mass productions.

  Someone nudges me in the back. It’s Ella. “Are you okay now?”

  Is Ella the one? I thought I had the answer, but now … Just tell her and see what happens …

  My phone is vibrating. Instead of talking I pull it from my pocket and start squinting at the screen.

  Eliot, pls don’t be mad.

  I do want to talk to you

  properly about this x x

  “How’s Lucy?” says Ella, perhaps affronted by the discourtesy and guessing the source of the message. “Still keeping in touch with her?”

  “Oh fuck off, Ella.” What does she know about it—about Lucy, about us? How could she ever understand how badly I’ve ruined things? “Just fuck off, would you?”

  Ella swings wide and high with her flattened hand and although things seem to be running in slo-mo I don’t bother to duck. I deserve it and I’m going to take it. My cheek stings with the immediate sensations of hard truth. I grab her by both arms and confront her: “Stop being such a cunt.” My shout demands the attention of several people around us. There’s a fleck of spittle on Ella’s cheek, loathsome evidence of me losing it. The future is suddenly closing in on me, my chest tightening, my head about to implode. Where am I going? What am I going to do with myself?

  “I hate you,” bawls Ella, ripping herself free and running off.


  I watch her disappear for a few seconds before I turn around. Spinning, I crash into a girl who is standing right behind me. She falls hard to the ground.

  “Sorry,” I say, bending desperately to help her up, everything moving in unexpected directions. A hand grabs me round the collar and yanks me to my feet.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing touching my girlfriend?” shouts a burly bloke with popping eyes and chunky jaw.

  “I was help—”

  “You’re a fucking wanker, mate,” he says, nose on nose. I don’t say anything. I’m too shocked about everything that has happened. I’m shaking. “You’re a fucking wanker.” He throws me off and I stutter my way to the edge of the club.

  He’s right. I am a fucking wanker. So what? At least I can admit it.

  Eliot Lamb: Curriculum Vitae

  I have significant and diverse experience in fucking things up. During my time at Oxford University, where I have recently completed a BA in Fucking Things Up, I have been able to fuck things up to a very high standard through my unwavering hard work and dedication, while still managing to consistently fuck up academically. Moreover, due to my personal drive and ambition I was able to fuck up my two best friends and my girlfriend almost simultaneously. I believe that this exceptional ability to balance my extracurricular and academic fucking up demonstrates strong organizational skills.

  I relish working in a team, as evidenced by my aforementioned participation in the fucking up of my two best friends and girlfriend. At the same time, I am extremely confident in leadership roles, such as when I efficiently orchestrated the fucking up of said trio.

  I have represented my county in fucking up for several years.

  Furthermore, I have strong communication skills: I was able to fuck up my best mate by telling him clearly and concisely that I fucked and fucked up his ex-girlfriend. The subsequent calamity demonstrates my ability to construct an argument that is both cogent and authoritative. Indeed, I have been told by various people that I am highly effective at fucking things up.